FEW of us are invited to perform on stage at Dubai’s splendid hotel The Palms, flown over on special request by the elite. West End star Rebecca Storm was the chosen one and back in Ireland from her Arabian nights, has Limerick pencilled in for a concert this Saturday February 11. She’s an international favourite who made her name in shows and albums – Willie Russell’s ‘Blood Brothers’, her own ‘The Streisand Songbook’ – and whose three albums have won a Golden Disc.
“I kind of hope this ‘Greatest Hits’ concert covers all three decades of my career, and it corresponds with the album that I’ve brought out. I also sing some songs from shows that that I have not done such as ‘Wicked’, Adele’s ‘To Make You Feel My Love’ and Streisand songs, because I am a huge fan of hers.
“Don’t expect it to be a night of musical theatre as the audience will know 98 per cent of the programme. And while I can’t tell a joke, I get them to sing a long with some – it will be a good night. I like to take people away from their cares”.
She’s proud of having a fine band to back her, with no less than National Symphony Orchestra leader Alan Smale on violin, Seamus Brett on keyboard and the requisite backing singers for va-va-voom and vocals.
An English woman, Rebecca Storm is Kildare based for a long time with husband and music director Kenny Shearer. They keep house in Britain as well but since Willie Russell introduced her to Ireland in 1985 as Mrs Johnstone in ‘Blood Brothers’, this country has sort of stuck in a good way.
“Willie changed my life. When ‘Blood Brothers’ first opened in the UK, all the cast was Irish and they wanted an Irish singer but he wanted that part for me”.
Mrs Johnstone being a Liverpudlian mother of many, the role demanded serious work of the then 23-year-old Storm but she made it great. ‘Blood Brothers’ became one of the biggest hits ever in British musical theatre. On to award winning shows such as ‘Evita’ and ‘Piaf’ and the albums ‘Ovation’, ‘Broadway by Storm’ and ‘Ireland by Storm’. Her self-devised and directed ‘Hollywood Ladies’ won Best Musical Review 1992.
Storm has talent by the octave and looks the part, but what do professional collaborators say about her voice, its distinctive quality?
She has to think a while. Then she recalls a session with renowned vocal coach Ian Adam, the man who trained Michael Crawford for ‘Phantom of the Opera’: “Ian told me my voice had not one but two timbres within it, so it often harmonises with itself’.
Back that USP with savvy, skilled projects and supporters in the game (names reel off as she talks about what, when, who and honestly, what bombed), and you get someone whom we want on stage. Make a date for UCH this Saturday 11, 8pm.
